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Intel has a history of failing at anything where they don't have a huge headstart (ie, anything non x86, or non purely process driven: Itanium, networks, wireless, DGX, RISC... basically, anything non Flash and non x86, and even x86 they managed to mess up a few times.

They finally threw in the diversification towel and went all-in on x86. I'm very unclear about what advantages x86 has apart from Intel's fabs. MS dramatically dropping the ball in the phone/tablet space didn't help them at all. MS trying to avoid a catastrophe by going ARM doesn't either. Even if MS finally manages to put together something believable in the phone/tablet space, it won't be an Intel exclusive.

My new Desktop is a $350 E-350, and is plenty powerful for what I do with it. I'm guessing next year ARM will be at that level of power (basically, playing videos on one screen, office stuff on the other, very light gaming), and it will be a good time to take a long hard look at whether paying $150+ for a Windows license really makes sense.

I think the weak link int the ARM food chain is Linux: no games, too fragmented, too experimental still, bad documentation. If a good strong and above newb-friendly version of Linux could emerge as a good all-rounder, ARM's chances would be even better. If the Linux camp doesn't wake up quickly, we'll end up with Windows on ARM, which will be... sad.Reply

Generally speaking, all modern CPUs are now RISC, but the x86 processors have an x86 decoding front end that translates the CISC instructions into RISC. Intel did this first way back in the P6 days. Of course, we also have all the SSE, MME, and other extensions (not just from Intel -- all the other CPUs have specialized instruction sets as well for certain work), so I'm not sure how valid calling anything "RISC" is these days.

I'd also take pretty strong exception with the assertion that Intel has "failed" at networks and wireless; my experience is that both their WiFi and NIC solutions are slightly better than the competition.

Then we get to the part where you say that an E-350 desktop is "plenty powerful for what you do". I suppose that's great for you, but having used E-350 and a lot of other systems, E-350 would be way down my list for a desktop system. I might use if for an HTPC, but anything more demanding than that and there are far better options. Llano at least is looking pretty good in initial testing, though.Reply

CISC CPUs are NOT RISC, as this is about the instruction set. And they are not the same internally either. CISCs always carry the extra overhead of complex variable length instruction decoders, large micro code ROMs and micro sequencers, extra logic to deal with read/modify/write instructions etc.

It is for this reason that you can have an Out-of-order RISC (Cortex-A9) which is not only several times smaller than an Atom, but also much faster while using far less power. That's the difference between RISC and CISC.Reply

There's plenty of documentation, games and coherency in GNU/Linux but it is largely so in the embedded and mobile space as ARM doesn't target desktops.

So a GNU/Linux platform with Gstreamer (Gstreamer and OpenMAX decoders), PulseAudio, GCC toolchain, libraries or middleware such as Clutter, Qt, Android and EGL/DRI/OpenGL ES support does plenty well in the phone, tablet and embedded market with multimedia, applications, user friendliness and games. You have players such as MeeGo, WebOS, Android and low-level infrastructure oriented LiMo. What you don't have and never will have is a consumer GNU/Linux distro that will run on everything from desktop oriented netbooks, desktops and server to phones and tablets. But you already has great games for the GNU/Linux platforms through the mobile-variants. There's no reason you can't use the same tools and API's for full size aka desktop games. For that matter Microsoft will never run Windows (NT) on phones. 8 for ARM I'm sure won't be for desktop users and I'm even more sure you won't be able to install it yourself. Intel however was rather set on running GNU/Linux on x86 tablets and smartphones. That might change now when their partner Nokia decided to go with Microsoft and downsize a profitable company, but I'm pretty sure they don't base their business on that. Different platforms should exist just fine tomorrow too. It's the normal consumers and hardware manufacturers that decides if Windows 8 tablets/smartbooks stick. Just being Windows based and building on ribbon won't do it by it self.Reply

I actually thought that might be it because of the giant hinge connection/protrusion, but when I went on Google's image search looking for profile pics, nothing really caught my eye. It's a shame, though - I was hoping there was a fully fledged notebook that looked like that. It looks great from that angle anyhow.Reply

The final requirement is all Ultrabooks must be sold at mainstream price points, which Intel calls sub-$1000.Intel estimates that by the end of next year 40% of consumer notebooks will be Ultrabooks. Given the desirable set of features and reasonable price point, I can see that happening.

With that pricepoint? your joking right? the share will be about 1-2% some geeks that want to show off on an airport or tradeshow. For that price i buy a decent tablet and a notebook. They will only be able to meat there perf goals in 2013, competition isn't idle in that area.

7x GPU perf means HD3000 like if they calculate from atom based right now, that ain't magic either :), that will just be brazos perf in early 2012 :).Reply

Got to agree. It's just a macbook air for windows with a different name. The macbook air for mac hasn't sold that well, and that's got all the apple fanboys that should love this sort of thing. The windows market is going to be substantially smaller - haven't other companies already tried this sort of thing?

Now if it was $400 they'd sell plenty but it's not so I don't see how it'll ever be more then a tiny niche market.Reply

And you know this based on the scientific technique of pulling a number out of your ass?

COMMON SENSE would tell us that the product is doing well, given that Apple broadened the line from one to two different models. But we can do more than that, we can look at the numbers.Q4 2010 Apple sold 1.1 million macbook airs. How does that compare?In the same period, Apple sold a total of 2.9 million notebooks.I'd say that's doing pretty well.Reply

" I fully expect Ivy Bridge to target relatively similar TDPs as Sandy Bridge"Is that just an assumption or any solid info? The combination of smaller process and FinFET might allow them to play a bit with perf,power consumption and dies size.Reply

I am suspicious about this statement well. The big TDP drop should happen with Ivy Bridge and its process change. Haswell, using the same process, will also have a much lower TDP. If not, I fear that the ultra book will get to market too late to counter the growing onslaught of ARM tablet. Reply

Here's to hoping that they can actually bring it to fruition. There might be a decent chance of it happening, since I'd bet that Intel is basically taking their learnings from trying to get into the phone and tablet market and applying them to a notebook platform. After all, why can't the same basic tricks used in an atom smartphone be applied to a sandy/ivy bridge laptop? Especially since they could now bring 4G mobile connectivity into the platform the same way they brought wireless into the mainstream with centrino. There's some pretty awesome potential, that's for sure.Reply

Well ultra portables are nothing new, but they are consumer friendly with pricing now. I.e. a laptop with a ULV processor doesn't cost over 2000 dollars any more. Which on the low end Apple was late getting on. CULV and consumer ultra-portables was already there by then. It's Intel that is responsible for all that as they provided the hardware platform for it to happen. A ULV-processor could before just a few years ago almost cost more then a CULV-laptop. Now they can be had for 100 USD. Performing not that badly. Falls in line with their "consumerising" of PCs.Reply

"The first requirement of an Ultrabook is that it's ultra-thin. In Intel's eyes this means less than 0.8" (20.32mm) which is thinner than anything Apple offers in the MacBook Pro line (0.95")."

So I guess that Intel (unlike a million screaming Apple haters) can see the writing on the wall. Optical storage is pointless for an ever larger group of users.

Let's see how long it takes for the story to switch from "but but but, how do you deal with not having a boot DVD" to "of course, Apple stole the idea of selling bootable USB sticks from MS/Linux/Nintendo/Atari".Reply

I agree with Kevith. Seems to me like the ideal solution would be a combination of some tablet type screen that would then open up to allow you to use a keyboard.

I would pay 1000.00 for something like this that you could use as a tablet and laptop combination. otherwise, I could not consider paying this much for a thin and light notebook. As someone else noted, i would prefer to buy a 500.00 tablet and a separate 500.00-700.00 laptop.Reply

Intel is obviously on a big money grab hoping their huge margins are going to carry them to the stars. Obviously they are delusional. All the idiot-trendy yuppie types who would actually pay the intel premium for a device like this are already buying Apple. lol. The non-ultrabook products will be significantly cheaper, thus they are what will sell, aside from the small % mindless yuppies who are already buying apple.Reply

All the reviews I can find are talking about a lot of heat and not very impressive battery life. Specifically, the i5-2537M. I wish Anandtech would do a more comprehensive review of these ultra expensive low power parts. When you comapre a 17W part with a 35W part, is the power consumption really cut in half or are they full of it?Reply